


I'm Waiting For You

by wxpt



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Canon - IT (Book/Movie/Miniseries Combination), Character Study, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, POV Mike Hanlon, Song fic, unproofread and melodramatic which is usually how i roll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wxpt/pseuds/wxpt
Summary: blood, magic, and mike hanlon in snapshots.
Kudos: 2





	I'm Waiting For You

_but i’ve been up all night, thinking of you,_

_hold tight, everyone’s been keeping time_

Mike can count the years between the rain. 

When he was younger, his mother and him would sit out on the porch while it stormed. Derry always had a hot sort of rain. It was thick, pregnant with the salt water carried from the Atlantic. He’d nestle up between her thighs while she rocked in the old creaking chair his father made and they’d watch the onslaught pour over the fields. 

She’d take his hand between her own. “Listen to the thunder, Mike,” she’d whisper and they’d both close their eyes, breathe in the smell of hot summer rain and rotten soil. Mike could hear the thunder before it would erupt, every time. 

His father said it was instinct. That he had farmer blood in him and farmer blood was stubborn. He’d unfurl his hands; massive, sheened with old age and deeply cut palmar lines. Mike would draw his finger along the hard calluses grinded on the bumps of his father’s palm. 

“This is a farmer hand,” William said. “And it has farmer blood in it.”

“It looks cut up,” said Mike.

“It doesn't hurt,” William assured. “Farmer hands are giving hands, Micheal. That means they never hurt. That blood in you,” and he poked Mike in the chest playfully, “that blood can heal things. Knows when the next rain’s comin’. Can tell time without lookin’ at clocks.”

“Sounds like pixie magic,” Mike said. His mother had been reading him _Peter Pan_ before bed every night. Just before she’d kiss him goodnight, she’d squeeze her fingers together and coat his body with pixie dust. It helped him fly in his dreams.

“Oh, it’s better than some old pixie magic, Mikey,” his father grunted, placing his hand on the top of Mike’s head. “You’ve got _time_ magic and that’s all that matters, when it comes down to it.”

“To what?”

“To the big stuff.”

Mike spent the night intermittently between sleeping and awakeness. In his dreams, he kept falling, waking up to the sound of groaning thunder, the rain slashing in sideways at his window. It shook the panes and made a frightening rattling noise, like old bones.

The sound reminded him of the scarecrows way out in the farm. He was too young to be working yet, but he’d toddle clumsily after his father, trying to match his footsteps. Long, easy strides. Mike always had to stretch out his legs to meet the soft boot prints. When the wind hit just right, the clattering of his bedroom window

(“Match your own steps, Mike,” his father called behind him. “No using fooling yourself around.”

The sun comes in backwards when you're in the fields. The ground, deep soil and all the miles of golden wheat and green vegetables. They were the heat. They were the rays. They burnt up and into the soles of Mike’s shoes, right into his feet. 

The sky was just a mimic. If you stared too long the air started to waver. If Mike was brave enough, he could’ve reached into that watery curtain and pulled out whoever was hiding there, stealing from the farm’s warmth.

Mikey knew it was the scarecrows. Stuffed men.

There was nothing real about them but the things they were filled with. Hay, sand, cotton from Mama’s old couch. Those were real. Not the button eyes and the sewed on mouth.

The scarecrows stared too long when Mike passed them and the wind)

sounded like their chattering teeth. 

So Mike was nervous when he woke up and heard his window crash against the frame. He just closed his eyes tight, trying to remember what his father said. _Time magic_. 

All scarecrows turn inside out when the wind rocks them hard enough, you just have to give it time. 

He woke up when the sky was blue and the rain had drawn back in.

_if i help you up, will you lead me through the night?_

_will you take my heart? can you promise me an afterlife?_

_when we lose our time._

With enough time, you start to see things how they really are. 

Scarecrows are just scarecrows. Creaky windows just need a new screw. Old hands aren’t magic, they’ve just been worked too hard. Derry only rains when something nasty happens, like some universal truth.

What goes up, must be swallowed by those sewers. Swollen streets, dark water. At eleven, Mike knew it was no magic that he sensed a bad rain was coming. It was something sicker.

Mike was doing his reading out on the porch. The sun streamed onto the wood, coloring it a dusky golden and painting the tips of his fingers. He moved them around, letting the shadows fall onto the ink of the page. He was bored already, but he needed to finish before his parents came back. They were out shopping. 

He was just rereading the first sentence when something twisted inside him. It was like when his father went too fast on a bump in the road, and the wheels lifted, and you were airborne but everything else was deep inside the pavement. It felt like he was sinking. 

His head had shot up, pupils blown wide and breath suddenly haggard, hurried. The field was just as golden as it was a few seconds ago. Sky still standing. The porch creaked slightly from the weight of the house. 

Then everything went black and upside down. Someone had pulled back that curtain in the air and all the hidden things fell through. The sky had turned thunderous, crowded with bruised clouds, and the ground shook from the force of the rain. It hit the soil like it was trying to dig something up

( _keep something buried_ )

and Mike ran inside. Book forgotten.

He slammed the door shut, breathing heavily. The windows were being blown in. He latched the door and rushed off to each opening, shuttering all the windows down and shutting the curtains tight. It was just rain, but he was scared of what he’d find if he looked out.

( _maybe those scarecrows all moldy and sticky. big, empty shoes stomping through the wheat. dragging rotten hay limbs, leaking cotton, buttons held on by threading strings._

_down to the porch down to the porch down to the porch_

_stench of festered vegetables. all decay_.)

Mike scrambled up the stairs, tripping over his own feet. The rain battered the sides of the house, desperate, angry. He stumbled to his parents’ room and tried to throw open the door, but the wind and rain was pushing it back. They must’ve kept the windows open. It was so sunny, so bright only moments ago.

( _there’s something in there. there is._

_and it's lonely and it's got a big, empty stomach full of loose hay and manure. it'll eat everything up just to feel real. you’ll sit in its stomach, mikey, if you force that door open._

_stuck in those old, rancid clothes. sopping clothes. and they’ll hang you back out in the field, nailed to post like Jesus with blood in your palm._

_time can’t save stuck boys. time makes rot_ )

As Mike stepped back, hands shaking, the master doors swung open with a screech. They hit either end of the hall and their knobs rammed into the plaster, sticking. The window above the bed was open. Rain and wind and yuck bolstered in, hollering. A soggy newspaper had stuck itself to the bed, but when a good gust of wind burst through, it flew up and chased Mike all the way to his bedroom. 

He locked the door behind him. His window had been thankfully shut, the room eerily calm, save for the hammering sound. 

Mike stumbled to his bed, pulling the covers tightly over him. He’d been crying, but he didn’t remember when he’d started. He counted the thunder with his eyes shut. 

His parents found him in troubled sleep about thirty minutes after. It was still raining, less now, though the forecaster promised a week more. 

Mike dreamed of dirty water and laughter. When he woke up, breathless, his mouth tasted like blood and his arm throbbed in ghost aches. 

_this is for the rest of us, hoping it’s alright_

_old enough to die, young enough to fight_

It didn’t rain all next summer, but that evil sickness still crowded in the dregs of Mike’s stomach. It sat there eating holes through his intestines. 

His hands grew more calloused. The crops grew wrong. The sun took on a sickly, orange color. Everyone kept fans on them, pressed cool water bottles to their foreheads, cried out when their bare feet touched pavement for too long. All of it was empty, Mike knew.

Derry was colder than it’d ever been. The storm may have passed, but the rain stuck.

It stuck in the aging pile of flowers on Witcham street. Bill was the only one who kept replacing them, but they never stayed. Cursed to die. 

Stuck in the new curfew. Stuck in Mike’s quiet room, in the private conversations between his parents. Stuck deep in the sewers, sloshed around and ate and waited. 

Mike wondered, silly and stupid after playing guns with the Losers, if his time magic had broken. If that was why everything had turned so twisted. Like a stuck watch, frozen in time, waiting endlessly for the next tick. Sometimes the summer felt like years, and he saw it in the way Richie smoked and Bev talked and Ben chewed on his nails. 

There was something old about them all. Possibly, he knew them for longer than he remembered. Mike’s mother believed in reincarnation. That nothing ever really gets old, it just gets lost in time.

(“You don’t forget the important things,” his mother told him while they walked down Main Street. “They just get stored away for a while, and when you need them again, they come right back up. Have you ever heard of deja vu, Mikey baby?”

“No,” he said, having to skip to keep up with her. 

“Well,” she began, “it’s when you feel like you’ve been somewhere before or you’ve heard something before, or seen someone, but you swore you never did. That’s you remembering the important things. That’s your past life seeping through.”

“How many lives do we get, Mama?”

“As many as you can think of,” she said and her voice took on a dreamy aspect. The chattering of the street dulling for a moment. “We’ve all got stars inside us, that’s why we’re infinite.”)

Maybe he knew them all before. Bill, Richie, Eddie, Bev, Stan, and Ben. Jagged pieces of night sky Mike had lost along the way, but they were coming up. Resurfacing, remembering. 

When they’d all sat around and told their stories, Mike felt that turning in him again. He looked to the sky and waited, but no rain came. All their mouths got dry, when they finished, staring at each other with wide eyes and knowing. 

“Why’s it up to us?” Eddie had asked, impossibly quiet.

“Because we’re real,” Mike told him. 

No one said anything for a long time, but then Bev reached over and grabbed Mike’s hand. Mike grabbed Stan’s, and they sat in a circle, holding each other. Mike had been here before. Time had overlapped. 

“We have each other,” Bill said. His stutter had gone. “There’s only one of It, no matter how many forms it takes.”

“Together,” Bev agreed solemnly. 

“And if it doesn’t work?” Stan said, voice cracking. “If whatever we do doesn’t work? What then?”

Mike squeezed his hand. “It will,” he promised. “We’re together, so it will.”

Then they were out of the sewers. Drenched, bloodied, unbowed. Mike’s knuckles were bruised and cut, but they didn’t hurt. His heart thrummed a steady, even beat like the ticking of a clock. 

Once they were all in the Barrens, they looked at one another, grinning ear-to-ear. It felt like the summer was finally hot again and the ground was warm. Overhead, a bird called out and Mike saw Stan’s head turn up curiously. It swished above them then dived deep into the trees. 

“Fuck that clown,” Richie said cheerfully and they all laughed. 

Bill swept down, snagging a broken Coke bottle. “But if it comes back,” he started. They all quieted, that knowing upon them again. The glass flashed ruthlessly under the sun. It made Mike’s insides harden. “If it comes back. We come back.”

There was a dreadful silence. All of them looked at one another. Then Bev took Mike’s hand, and Mike took Stan’s, and they stood in a circle. 

( _endless. whole._ _uroboros eats its own tail and the universe curves into itself forever, overtop and under and sideways._

_we are stuck round the circle. to repeat_

_until_

_the_

_next_ )

The rain never came, but Mike’s stomach still turned. 

When they held hands again, after their palms had been split, Mike hoped some of his farmer blood leaked into their veins. To keep them sturdy, keep them whole, keep them together. 

There was a long lapse coming. They were going to get lost in time soon. 

There was a heavy ticking in his chest. Stopwatch, droning and doting. He’d have to find them, so they didn’t go on forgetting. 

_this is all that’s left of us, you can take my life,_

_i can hear it moving on, rising with my eyes_

Mike has been counting seconds since that moment in the Barrens. Tally marks line the edge of his desk, covered by a cloth so the volunteers don’t see. He checks off each day in solemn penance.

If he closes his eyes, he can hear thunder. The rain will be coming soon and they will either swim or be washed out. He isn’t sure which one he wants. If the fighting is worse because you go on living. 

At twenty, his father died. Bed-ridden with blisters on his back, cheeks sunken deep inside his face like all the good stuff had been drained from him. It was the farmer blood. Roiling. Angry. Mike watched him struggle. Even when he died, the cancer eating him from the inside out, his fingers still gave a final, accusatory twitch. 

( _don’t go gentle_ )

Mike has to believe the fighting is worth it, that the living gets easier, or who is he staying for?

( _them. alway them, locked in the corners of his mind and heart and soul._

_bev skipping stones. bill and his stutter. eddie’s nervous boldness. the smell of richie’s marlboros. ben’s voice. stanley, his even, three taps on the doorframe before he enters a room._

_when you dream, you see them in sun splatters and there is no wind but the force of their laughter and the pull of summer lungs_ )

Mikey isn’t scared of scarecrows anymore, but he’s still scared of stuffed men.

When he was a child, adults had those glazed looks. Like the children were ghosts of ghosts of ghosts. It still haunts him, that vacancy. To be seen through. Worse: to be looked into and deemed hot air. 

That’s what It did, or tried to do. It took their hands and tugged them deep inside the sewers, bit into the very _them_ of themselves and tore. 

( _hungry and lonely_ )

Mike hurts. 

He hurts so bad sometimes. There’s this aching somewhere, and he drowns himself in his journals, in rereading. The phone hangs silently on the wall, watching. 

When he calls, the hurt just intensifies. It burns when he sits at the Chinese restaurant, food untouched. His friends are loud, they talk too much and too fast, and Mike knows they’re trying to drown too. There’s an empty spot at the table and Mike doesn’t know why he isn’t surprised. 

( _deja vu. farmer blood. if you close your eyes you can still hear the thunder_ )

“How’s Derry treated you, Mikey?” Richie asks at some point, and the rest fall silent. 

“This town is sick,” he answers. 

Bev takes his hand. They keep an open space for Stanley. 

( _you look inside It._

_It’s stolen from you. the warmth, the wheat, the cotton._

_It wants to eat you whole. bite down harderharderharder. turn It inside out, pull back the curtain, mikey; take what’s yours and more_ —)

“—too dark in here, guys,” Richie says, and Bill drags him back by the shoulders. “It’s too dark in here for him—”

(“I’m asking you to be a good boy for me, Mike,” his mother whispered. “While I’m away.”

He took her ice-cold hand. It was small between his, fragile. “Let’s count the thunder, Mama,” he said, swallowing hard. “To keep the dark away.”

“It always comes,” she said. Her voice was wavering, far-off, like the world was just a gauze. “We have to go back. We have to go back—”

“Back where, Mama?” he asked. She was just talking, rambling, remembering.

“To the night,” she gasped. He saw her eyes widen suddenly, breath catching uneasily. “Return—”)

Something sharp and cool hooks Mike’s navel. The ceiling starts to crash in.

Derry rains hard and bad for the first time in 27 years. It sinks inwards, folds atop itself, fights and dies and lives again

When they resurface, that deep, sick ache is gone from within him. There’s only the cavity. The rain batters down on the five of them, sticking their dirty hair to their foreheads. The palms of their hands start to bleed again, like the scar is fresh and young. 

Mike opens his hand. Calluses along the bumps below his fingers. Fingertips stiff and ugly from page-turning. The blood, a bright, wonderful red, drips down the side of his wrist. He raises his hand and lets the rain rinse it clean. 

He hears Bev laugh.

The whole town is gone. A massive sinkhole has cut down Up Mile High. Water sloshes into the pit in crazed rapids. He looks up to the sky and the heavy clouds are plump, earnest. 

Bev laughs again and there’s a splash. Mike turns around. 

They’re playing in the puddles. The potholes have filled. 

Bill kicks at the water and the sun catches it mid-air, turning it to fire. 

Mike closes his eyes, lets the rain slip down his back, his shoes soggy. The sound of the Losers erupting in spurts of laughter and cheers, the distant sirens, and he counts. The thunder. 

( _that’s all that matters, when it comes down to it._

_time._

_you make the counting last. you hope the day doesn’t end, and the night is long and kind. no more heaviness, now. clean your face, wash your hands, love them blindly, dumb and wicked._

_you have healing._

_my ever-fixed marks. they are lost, always lost, in time. but i remember you,_

_i am yours to save. i don’t want to sleep yet_ )

Unstuck.

**Author's Note:**

> lyrics are from slow down by twiceyoung


End file.
